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N. J. Evans II (Univ. of Texas at Austin)
The study of star and planet formation relies heavily on infrared and longer wavelengths, both to overcome attenuation by dust and to probe regions at temperatures of 10's to 100's of kelvins. Star and planet formation requires moving matter from envelopes extended over about 10,000 AU to disks on scales of 1--100 AU and ultimately into stars and planets on much smaller scales. These processes occur primarily at low velocities (1 to 10 km/s). Telescopes and instruments of this decade will provide excellent sensitivity, allowing detection of very low luminosities and tiny column densities of dust. The challenge for the new generation of instruments for the next decade will be to provide much better spatial and spectral resolution while retaining sensitivity to small amounts of mass, both of gas and of dust. We will explore some questions that could be addressed with these new capabilities.